“Oh, wow! What are they doing there?”

Despite the seemingly poor chances of success, the team received considerable support from the outset. Management was in favor of developing this unusual technology, and colleagues in basic research and computed tomography were on hand to provide advice and practical assistance. There were some particularly unusual challenges in store for these teams. “For them, the process of working together on our idea was uncharted territory,” Brunner recalls over 20 years later. “It was very, very difficult to integrate our technology’s requirements into an angiography system.” In mid-2004, after around five years of research into various different prototypes, the technology had reached maturity and was given the name syngo DynaCT. This was a special moment for the development team and for the division, as Brunner recalls: “To see everything working as planned and that the first diagnostic images delivered the desired level of quality — that was such an amazing moment for us after overcoming a whole series of challenges.”

In November 2004, syngo DynaCT was presented to a wider audience for the first time at the Annual Meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) in Chicago. In 2005, Siemens Healthineers (which was known as Siemens Medical Solutions in those days) presented AXIOM Artis, the first angiography system with DynaCT technology, at RSNA. Product manager Michael Martens still vividly recalls that era: “It was really astonishing to see how many people had gathered at our exhibition stand to catch a glimpse of our new system. It was a biplane system, which is a configuration typically used by our customers in neuroradiology. syngo DynaCT allowed those customers to witness CT-like imaging that could visualize things like bleeding in the brain or implanted stents for the first time.” The first syngo DynaCT images, which Siemens Healthineers exhibited at the RSNA Annual Meeting, were the first CT-like images produced using an interventional imaging system. “Many customers from different countries came to have a look. Some genuinely said the images looked like they’d been captured with their CT scanners, while other customers couldn’t really believe what they were seeing.” Some were initially skeptical, but they were won over to this innovative technology thanks to its ability to perform diagnostic imaging using an interventional system. “It makes me very proud as product manager that all the thoughts and ideas we had during development and testing turned into something that has had a significant impact on clinical practice and continues to benefit many patients to this day.”